Monday, March 13, 2006

Last night, Diana and I went to see an interesting play called The Rock and The Rabbi. Below is a synopsis.

The Rock & The Rabbi is the new musical based on the life of Peter the fisherman and Jesus of Nazareth. A contemporary treatment of the Biblical story, The Rock & The Rabbi is a combination of storytelling and acoustic music. Intimate and emotional, funny and thrilling, the show tells the classic tale of friendship and betrayal, forgiveness and reconciliation.

The most interesting thing about the play wasn't necessarily the subject matter, and being the heathen that I am I knew nothing about Peter and Jesus. The most interesting part was the musical aspect. The story is told by a narrator that acts as the voice of Simon aka Peter aka The Rock. And No, I couldn't smell what the Rock was cookin', but if I could it most likely would have been fish as he was a fisherman in his original profession.

The narrator takes you along the story of how Peter met the Rabbi(Jesus) and followed him up until his death. As the story progresses, music is used to tell certain parts of the story. I have never seen as many musicians on such a small stage. The band included two acoustic guitars, a bass, two percussionist that played everything from the chimes to morracas, a violinist, a bongo player, a gong, an accordian, and at one point they even threw in bagpipes. They also used a washboard, drums, and a few musical instruments that I had never seen.

All in all, it was an extremely entertaining evening. I learned a little bit about the origins of some of the Bible stories I've heard and found out that, at least for the extent of the show, Jesus was a large Black Man. Who knew?